


The Family Tree - Disambiguation

by Ridiculosity



Category: Radical Face - Fandom, The Branches - Radical Face (Album)
Genre: Meta, My opinions, Song discussion, conjecture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-03
Updated: 2015-03-03
Packaged: 2018-03-16 00:26:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3467591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ridiculosity/pseuds/Ridiculosity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So, I decided to try and trace the Northcotes family to the best of my abilities, and piece their story together. Most of it is conjecture, but whatever is solidly known I have sourced.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Family Tree - Disambiguation

**Author's Note:**

> Unfortunately, I'm Indian, and I can't join the Radical Face forum. I had hoped to put this there, but since I can't, AO3 shall suffice.

I’m obsessed with the new EP released by Radical Face. _Nightclothes,_ in particular, has taken over my life. The whole of _The Family Tree_ is a little hard to follow, as a lot of the trails of the Northcotes family go cold, and are unexplained by Ben Cooper. We do have some solid information which can be used to chronicle the story that all of us have been dying to figure out. So, in a bit of my free time, I decided to piece together the Northcotes family the best I could, based on forum discussions, Ben’s interviews, what Ben himself has said about the family, and so on. We will be journeying together through the murky marshes of memory and in a realm of conjecture.

First, let’s enumerate what we _do_ know about the Northcotes family:

_From the album **The Family Tree: The Roots.**_

  1. _The Family Portrait,_ part of _The Roots_ album is the earliest in the timeline. It tells us the tale of the father and the mother, the father who turned out to be a dark bastard with a wooden heart, and the mother who died at the birthing bed. They have two children, a boy and girl. 
  2. _Black Eyes,_ is a drunken story told by the boy that the father and mother of the family portrait had. His name is William.
  3. _The Moon is Down,_ is a song from the neighbour of the girl that the father and mother had, named Victoria. Tom, the neighbour, always loved her, but Victoria, after the death of her father became independent and taught herself, even had children out of wedlock.
  4. _A Pound of Flesh,_ is a story of one of William’s three sons. This particular son is Judah, and he has killed a man, and is trying to come home.
  5. _Ghost Towns_ and _Names_ is also from Judah’s perspective, as he has inherited his father’s hot bloodedness.
  6. _Always Gold -_ From the perspective of Judah’s better brother, Robert, who always cleaned up his messes.
  7. _Severus and Stone_ is about Victoria’s twin boys, and Victoria’s family is for the first time shown to have something of a supernatural element in it. The blood from her family is slightly weird, which is why Severus, the brother that dies, floats from the ground. **[This is our first bit of conjecture – I always found it odd that William’s side did not have the same supernatural element. I believe that the supernatural side to Victoria’s family comes from the father of her children, who is unknown.]**
  8. _Kin_ is a song about William’s last son, Virgil, who is injured later and requires a blood transplant. Victoria’s son, Stone, the one who survives, gives him the blood needed, however, since Victoria’s blood is off a little, Virgil begins to see dead ancestors. Cooper has revealed that Virgil eventually lost his mind.
  9. _The Dead Waltz,_ is a song from Tom, Victoria’s neighbour’s perspective, about Victoria’s daughter, Abigail, who can walk on water when she sleep walks. Weird family.
  10. _Mountains,_ is a song from Robert’s (son of William) son’s perspective. Kyle, as the kid is called, is talking about his brother, David, who is commissioned in war. Robert’s wife Genevieve is dead due to cancer. 



Well, that’s the first album. This is the most straightforward information we have. These are all the things that are solid, and up until now, the family is easy to trace. After this, things become a little more difficult to trace.

_From the album **The Family Tree: The Branches**_

  1. This album was not a set of stories written together, but in the form of letters to different people. I’m going to try to be as clear as possible.
  2. _Holy Branches_ is a song about Stone, Victoria’s son, a lot later in life. Since Severus and Stone share a twin link, plus a supernatural element, Severus is unable to move on, and he lives inside Stone’s head. Stone has survivor’s guilt, as well, and Severus is trying to get Stone to remove all his stuff and bury it outside(that’s what’s in the official video), but in Stone’s sleepy, weird state, it all looks like a large family tree.
  3. _The Mute_ is about Tom (Victoria’s neighbour) and his son. He never makes his feelings clear to Victoria, marries a woman he doesn’t care for, and when his son is born a mute, he thinks destiny is talking and that he should have told Victoria what was needed.
  4. _Reminders_ is a song from Judah’s (William’s son) bastard son, Walter’s perspective. I think he is asking his father to leave, and dream that he “turned out well.”
  5. _The Crooked Kind_ is about Virgil’s (William’s son) family. The talking to ancestors thing has become a family trait, and Virgil’s sons, Abraham and Daniel are in it. Abraham is trying to come to terms with his weirdness.
  6. _Letters Home,_ is Robert’s sons again – Robert being one of William’s sons. As recalled previously, David, Robert’s son, is commissioned to war, and is on his deathbed, writing to his brother, Kyle. Although this is never specified, it’s a very easy guess to assumed that this also further leads to _Letter’s Home: Aftermath,_ where David is dead and Robert is told about it.



_Things that are mildly ambiguous_

  1. On a forum discussion, Ben says, _“_ _Chains involves Thomas, who is the brother in Always Gold that the narrator talks about. He eventually leaves and makes his home on the east coast. The song follows him and the friend he made when first arriving, and how he dragged them into trouble. His brother is no longer there to talk sense into him, and he winds up in jail. The song is written as a letter to his old friend, and yes, he's building a railroad._ ”  
\- The only problem is, we had placed _Always Gold_ with Judah and Robert. In the same discussion he has said that _“_ _Mountains is connected to Always Gold, and later, Letters Home. Robert is the subject of Always Gold.”_ So, have we missed a brother? Personally, I don’t think so. Maybe Ben has mixed up the brothers a bit. But we can assumed that Thomas is a person, however, I will cover that in the ‘Conjecture’ section.
  2. Ben has mentioned in an interview that _The Branches_ will have a song about Abigail’s – Victoria’s daughter – granddaughter.



From this point onward, everything I say is high conjecture. None of this is confirmed by Ben Cooper, and this is merely for my benefit, because I really want to put the pieces together, for my own sanity. Consider this something similar to Fanfiction.

I’m going to try to go through this chronologically, but it’s going to become really hard. A small note: where the EPs are concerned, I place them thusly: _The Bastards: Volume One_ and _Always Gold EP_ is part of _The Roots, The Bastards: Volume Two,_ goes with _The Branches,_ and _The Bastards: Volume Three,_ is part of the yet unreleased _The Leaves_ and I’m going to try not to make guesses about them. This chronology is mainly because Ben says he plans to make the album more modern as it goes.

**_The Bastards: Volume One_ **

  1. _All Is Well (It’s Only Blood) + All Is Well (Goodbye, Goodbye)_ – I’ve been wondering who these songs correspond to for a while. Since this is the first EP, the instruments, progressions and so on match the first album, however, they don’t fit any of the characters we know. It could be Kyle and David – Robert’s sons, but I don’t think so – David, after all, dies in war, and this song is about fixing something that had gone wrong (perhaps an unpaid debt, or robbers, and so on). I believe this song is about William, the first son of the Father/Mother duo. And the person he is singing to is his wife (I call her Ruth), because she would have been rightly devastated at his death. And William is known to be a hot blood. I’m aware that not a lot of songs are from the perspective of women, for I think Ben finds them a bit hard to relate to, but I think that _All is Well (Goodbye, Goodbye)_ is William’s wife.
  2. _We’re On Our Way –_ the music video for this one doesn’t help, for it gives no indication about what the family tree is and all. It’s a cute and funny video, but doesn’t help the ones dissecting the tree up. And again, I know that women aren’t very prevalent voices in Ben’s music and their stories are often told from other eyes, but I feel like this is Victoria, after William has had a particularly bad day. She’s comforting him.



**_The Unknown Thomas_ **

The Thomas that Cooper mentions in the forum post I quoted has to be someone real, or why would Ben say it anyway, no matter if the song he refers to is unclear? Since Ben seems to be saying that Thomas was related to the _Always Gold_ bunch, I am inclined to believe the connection goes from there, even if our creator is confused, or if we missed a brother. However, whose son is Thomas, in that case? I toyed with the idea of him being Robert’s son, but Robert’s sons Kyle and David have four songs chronicling them, and they can’t simply miss a brother. However, Judah has only one song about his son, and that’s _Reminders –_ so perhaps Thomas is Judah’s son, who isn’t mentioned, and maybe that’s why Ben got a bit mixed up with the _Always Gold_ timeline. Here’s what I believe happened to Thomas:

\- Thomas and Walter are good friends, and Walter fixes him up – because history repeats itself between the brothers. Walter is of the calmer disposition also found in the family (think Victoria and Robert), while Thomas mimics his father, Judah.

\- Thomas goes off into the wild, and makes a friend who is referred to in _Chains_ but gets himself in a bit of trouble, and is making a transcontinental railway line.

\- Thomas makes his home in the East, and he works in a factory, and that’s what _The Gilded Hand_ is all about. 

**_Abigail’s Family_ **

So, I don’t have any information from Ben saying anything about Abigail’s family, but, I do believe she is scattered throughout the album. Abigail is a bit of an enigma in the story, and I do like her the best of all the characters Ben created. We know that there’s supposed to be one song about Abigail’s granddaughter, and I’m going to try and piece together Abigail’s story from here and there.

\- Abigail as a child is probably the same age as The Mute (Tom’s - Victoria’s neighbour – son), and since they are neighbours, I believe that _Summer Skeletons_ is about the two of them as friends, initially. The Mute is just as weird as her and everything so I don’t think it’s very difficult to imagine them as friends. The Mute eventually leaves because the burdens of his house and his parents becomes too much for him.

\- Abigail marries, and I like to think she has a daughter, Isabel. She might also have had two daughters, which are referred to in _Sisters,_ where Abigail is distrustful of all she does because she knows of her sleepwalking exploits. But, that really is high conjecture, and I am not dissecting the new EP, because it places with a new album.

\- Abigail’s daughter which I call Isabel, also eventually marries, and has two children – a boy and girl. I call them Lawrence and Olivia.

\- Olivia is the granddaughter in the album – she is referred to in _Southern Snow,_ as the girl who walks into the woods and is “never seen again.” Lawrence is the one talking. I think Olivia survives, but goes somewhere far off.

 **_The Unknown Family in_ ** _Second Family Portrait **and** Echoes_

So this family is completely unaccounted for, and nobody quite knows where they fit. One thing everybody does agree with is that _Echoes_ and _Second Family Portrait_ fit together – both of them are about a younger brother who “turns twelve” and after that, in _Echoes,_ is forgotten, while in _Second Family Portrait_ is diagnosed as a schizophrenic, at twelve, again. Both of the songs follow the same nostalgic pattern, and so on, and both the songs have a mom who is strange [“My Mom was strange, but she always liked it so” – _Second Family Portrait._ “And Mamma was losing her mind,” – _Echoes_ ].

There’s only two possibilities for this family to fit into – they cannot fit in anywhere else: in Robert’s family, Genevieve is dead, and Judah’s family is scattered and wandering. They could be a part of Kyle’s later story, but I don’t know – I don’t think Kyle is the kind of person who would send his schizophrenic son away. Abigail’s family has girls, so it doesn’t fit there either, and Virgil’s family is used to all the oddness. This story fits in two places:

\- Stone, in later years, finds a wife, who is a bit odd and weird. He has gained a little bit of calmness, and that’s why speaks little. Unlike Virgil’s family, Stone’s supernatural attributes are something that can be more easily explained by PTSD, while in Virgil’s family, the sons share a mental link and all (not as explicable). Which is why Stone believes his son to have schizophrenia, however, understands the problems. The other son, the one in _Echoes_ keeps hearing his schizophrenic brother’s voice (history does repeat itself, and Victoria’s blood is odd).

\- The Mute, later in life finds a wife who is also odd like him. That’s why the father doesn’t speak much. Since he had witnessed first hand a troubled marriage, he doesn’t want the same to happen to his wife and agrees to send his schizophrenic son away “At my mom’s behest.”

I personally don’t know which family it is, but again, this whole thing is wildest guesswork.

**_Remaining Songs_ **

  1. _West_ is a song about Judah as he has left his son(s?)(They are bastards, after all) and is trying to make his way home, but there are enemies after him. The abrupt ending of the song would mean that Judah probably was caught and passed away.
  2. _From the Mouth of an Injured Head_ – I have no idea where to place this, but perhaps The Mute, on his travels, gets injured, and someone fixes him up. Possibly his future wife, or maybe Olivia, granddaughter of Abigail (but the timeline is too off for that).



The one song that did not fit in my analysis was _We All Go The Same._ I have no idea how it fits, but maybe it’s from Stone’s perspective? Dunno.

_Wild guesses about **The Bastards: Volume Three**_

  1.   _Baptisms_ is about The Mute and the woman he marries. How they meet and how she makes him new again.
  2. _Sisters_ is about either Abigail’s daughters (and I don’t know if there are two, I have only theorized the existence of one), or it could be Olivia’s (Abigail’s granddaughter) later line.
  3. _Nightclothes_ could be about Abigail’s grandchildren, the ones theorized by me to be Lawrence and Olivia. Lawrence is telling us about his sister and how they spent their time together.



Well, I really am looking forward to the new album, and this one was the best he has ever done. I loved it.

_I’d like to remind everyone that the guesses I have made are all conjecture, and haven’t been confirmed by anyone. It was simply to keep me sane and stop me from going mad with guesswork._

Sources:

  1. <http://oldradicalface.com/forum/index.php?threads/branches-discussion-thread.270/page-2#post-5534> [Ben’s explanations about some of the songs in _The Branches]._
  2. <http://oldradicalface.com/forum/index.php?threads/dear-ben-q-a.25/page-2#post-771> [Ben’s explanations about the songs in _The Roots]._
  3. <http://www.bedroomdisco.de/2011/11/radical-face-interview/> [Ben’s interview with a mention of Abigail’s granddaughter]. 



**Author's Note:**

> So, what do you think? ^.^


End file.
